After 3 years of trying to get Special Operations, I finally got it tonight. No thanks to Ubisoft Technical Support, who still deny that it is an issue. A friend found a way to trick the game into thinking you are starting the game for the first time and erasing the fact you ever downloaded the DLC. Best of all, it does not require any hack, mod, or other illegal function to work.

I tried it tonight around midnight and played every (original) map and mode and got the achievement a little after 3:30 AM.

Anyone else out there who still can't unlock the Special Operations achievement?

Sorry it took me a while to type up the steps. Also took time to double-check that this isn't against any rules or policies.

And as for the great Ubisoft Tech Support people who undoubtedly will go from denying this is an issue to saying they have been telling people to do this for the last 4 years... Thanks for 4 years of denying this is an issue. I tried to unlock Special Ops at least 20 times while you said there was no issue. I unlocked it on my first try after using this fix.

Sorry for getting off track there for a moment, back to the fix...

This fix does the following things:
1. Only affects the game you use this procedure on.
2. Resets your achievement progress tracker for the game.
a. Allows you to restart an achievement attempt from scratch, like you are starting the game for the first time.

This fix does NOT do the following:
1. Instantly award achievements.
2. Award achievements for stuff you have not legitimately done.
3. Affect any stats saved on the game/Xbox servers

There is a danger warning with this fix:
1. If you have other achievements left to unlock in the same game, their progress will be set to 0 as well. So, for example, if you are 1 checkpoint away from beating the game on the hardest difficulty and do this fix, you will need to start the campaign on the hardest difficulty from scratch in order to get that achievement. So make sure you finish all other achievements you are working for in this game first.
2. Because your rank is saved/stored on servers, it is not known if this fix would set your rank tracker to 0 experience, or if your rank achievements are pulled solely from the servers and therefore would be left untouched. If you already have earned the Elite Rank, this is not a concern. But if not, I would recommend playing until you get Elite first, just to be safe.

Just to be 100% clear, this is not “gamesaving” where you take someone’s profile/saved game and use some glitch to unlock achievements on a profile that has never played the game. What this fix does is quite the opposite, it resets the tracker to nothing so that you may start an achievement attempt from scratch; you must successfully complete the achievement requirements after doing this fix in order to unlock the achievement.

Now, for how to do the Special Operations Ultimate Fix:
1. Delete or move (to removable hard drive or memory card) all DLC, saved games, multiplayer templates, and custom heads for this game only. (If you save your data, it will allow you to use your data after fixing the Special Operations achievement. Just do not reconnect the device with your data until after you have unlocked the achievement.)
2. Move your gamertag profile to a memory card or USB flash drive (can not be on a removable hard drive and cannot be the same place you moved the items from step #1).
3. Clear the cache on each and every memory device (go to Guide Button, over to System Settings, down to Memory, then go to each device, hit Y, and choose Clear System Cache).
4. Turn off your console, and if you moved items in step #1, remove that device now. (Leave device with your profile attached).
5. Turn console back on, log back into Xbox Live, and clear your cache again, just to be safe. If you removed the hard drive, you may need to redownload the Xbox Live Update.
6. Start the game; you will be prompted about the Title Update for the game. Do not accept the update!!
7. As soon as you have declined the update and that popup window closes (but before you see the main menu screen), remove the device that has your gamertag on it. You will get a warning message asking you to reinsert your memory device. Do not reinsert it yet.
8. When the Main Menu comes up, the first option should be to Start New Story. If the first option is Load Last Checkpoint, you did not do step #1 right, go back and start from #1.
9. Go to Single Player, choose Story Mode. You should have Start New Game and Scene Selection as the only options. Choose Start New Game.
10. Before you choose a difficulty, reinsert the memory card/USB flash drive with your gamertag. The message asking you to reinsert it should go away. Hit the guide just to verify it still shows your gamertag as being logged in (Not on Live since you declined the update in step #6).
11. Choose Normal, and press A to start the campaign.
12. Allow all of the cut scenes to play out, and play the game until you get to the first checkpoint. Go just past the checkpoint and kill the next bad guy.
13. Reload the checkpoint. Verify it is where you had just passed through.
14. Go to Main Menu.
15. Go to Dashboard. You should automatically connect to Xbox Live.
16. Start the game again. This time, accept the Title Update.
17. Go to Multiplayer and start working on the Special Operations achievement requirements. (I suggest you host the matches just to be safe).
18. The first mode you should work on is Survival, as this will tell you if the glitch that has been affecting you has been fixed. (When glitched, Survival matches display as Sharpshooter in the lobby and/or loading screen. If the fix has been done properly, it will not show the wrong mode.)
19. Make sure for Attack and Defend to change the time to 5 minutes to be sure you can complete the objectives and have a clear winner in each match.
20. Continue playing through all of the map/mode combinations and you should have the achievement within 4 hours.

Good luck and post if it helped you /a friend unlock the achievement.

Just for the sake of curiosity... As of 9:40 AM EST on 5/22/11 there are 3,795 people on True Achievements who have unlocked Special Operations. But 2,803 have unlocked the rank of Elite. And 5,763 have Rainbow Six Legend (completed the game on Realistic Difficulty). http://www.trueachievements.com/Rain...s-xbox-360.htm

Thanks, aerocoupe, for posting this fix. I also have had this achievement glitched on me for over 3 years and all the ways people have said to get it to pop have not worked. I would have tried this method before, but you said you weren't sure it would reset my rank so I had to wait until I reached Elite. As I finally got there, I tried right away and it worked beautifully. And on top of that, my rank actually was NOT reset so I still get to keep my status. I thank you for your efforts and for posting to help others.

And Ubisoft, please take note: while it may seem that there is no problem with getting this achievement, I can assure you that there ARE individuals out there who have had extreme issues with trying to unlock it. I have been told that it is related to the DLC -- which I did download before I even played the game -- but all I can tell you for sure is I tried every other method that I came across to unlock it and it was not until trying this one that it actually worked. I can understand if it is no longer worth the effort to actually fix the glitch (since the game is over 5 years old), but I would hope that you don't deny the presence of the problem just because no one can seem to pinpoint it. I think you're a better company than that. Thank you for reading!

15. Go to Dashboard. You should automatically connect to Xbox Live.
16. Start the game again. This time, accept the Title Update.
17. Go to Multiplayer and start working on the Special Operations achievement requirements.

when it prompts to select a storage device do you select the hard drive or the usb with the gamertag? this would be with all saves of all kinds deleted from hard drive. or would you just hit cancel on that prompt?